Day 13

We were up early again today, though not quite as early as before. Plenty of time to get dressed and walk around a bit before breakfast, though. We had our bags packed way before they were due, but I had added a pair of Jan's wet hiking shoes to my luggage, so I just wanted to be sure it was still within the twenty-two pound weight limit. We talked my father into taking a look around the gift shop, which he did, and found a few things that interested him. Just about everyone found something they liked. Rather than try to carry it in his luggage we just had him add it to our lot to be shipped home. You have to just give them your credit card and they'll charge whatever DHL charges them, so it will be very interesting to see what the final tally is. We weren't leaving the lodge until 9 am, so we had lots of time to kill before the buses left. When we got to the Tari air strip, there was not as big a crowd as before, but there were lots of people in the area going to the market. We waited for what seemed like a long time, and in fact, the plane was quite late arriving. No point in making a big deal about it, though. In Papua New Guinea things just happen when they happen. Two other planes landed before ours, both smaller. Their arrival attracted a crowd, though, and by the time ours arrived, there was quite a throng gathered. I was glad that our luggage was already on our side of the fence. The plane came to a stop and let some people out, and they started removing the baggage. They took two small coffins out of the hold with the other luggage. That was pretty sad. This plane was configured differently from the one we had arrived in, and there wasn't room for anyone but our party. So we took off and headed to Mt. Hagen airport to fuel up. Mt. Hagen was a real airport, with a paved runway and everything. No one was getting on or off, so we refueled and were on our way to Port Moresby pretty quickly. It was one thirty before we got to Port Moresby, which was way behind schedule. The other two groups had apparently been there for quite a while. Getting through airport security and passport control was surprisingly painless. They said if we had our outgoing cards, they would take them, but if not just go on. I had left mine in my passport, which they kept (and TCS now has), so I didn't have mine. We were finally on the TCS jet and I felt like I was back home. Eddie the first officer came back and was talking to us and said that the guy that was supposed to refuel the jet didn't want to come to work, and so he had to call someone in Australia to get the jet refueled for the flight to Cambodia. Nothing seems to work like it's supposed to in Papua New Guinea. It was an interesting place, but I'm glad I'm out of there. I'm also glad I didn't know how close we came to not being able to leave. That would have sucked.

On the seven hour flight from Papua New Guinea to Cambodia, I thought I was going to be able to get my blog entries up to date and caption some more photos. While I got the entries done, I never had time to do the captions. Lunch got in the way. When they serve you a meal on the plane, you have the tray sitting in front of you, and you're trapped. I should have skipped it, but I hadn't eaten breakfast, and I felt like I needed to eat something. And it was pretty good.

We got to Cambodia around 6:30 in the evening and it was quite dark. There were lots of uniformed people standing around looking very official. We were doing a group check through passport control, so we just all walked through. About half of us had already passed by when this confused looking customs man emerged from an office asking if we had customs cards. We told him we were with a group and all our cards would be coming to him at once. He didn't seem happy, but he didn't stop us either so we just kept walking. Small buses called "coasters" took us to our hotel, the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor. Our guide on the bus was telling us some things about Cambodia, and Siem Reap. Everyone in Cambodia over about the age of twelve has seen some very bad times. They are still cleaning up the land mines in the countryside. There are several organizations that help provide money and resources for this purpose. The most famous is probably one started by Princess Diana. Some of the mine are even made of plastic so the mine detectors have trouble finding them. Civil wars have ravaged this country for years. It was only ten years ago that bullets were flying over the very spots were were driving through. I have to say it looks like they've come a long way for having had so much difficulty. Don't get me wrong, this isn't like a big American city. There are still dirt streets, and a lot of people wear paper masks to protect from the dust. There are more motor scooters than cars on the roads. I saw one family of five on a single scooter. But there were people outside eating at open air cafes and everything seemed very safe. The hotel looked very nice. It's a very pretty old building that has been thoroughly renovated and is quite comfortable. We were allowed to order off the menus in either of the hotel dining rooms, and we went to the hotel cafe (as opposed to the more formal restaurant). My father joined Sam, Jan and I. Everything we ordered was delicious. I ordered Cambodian fried noodles, and they were great. It was a long day so we headed up to our rooms and hit the sack.